Dirty Dozen – Laura Hader

Laura isn’t interested in being America’s next snowboarding sweetheart, and this might just be the thing that sets her apart from the crowd. Of her current approach to the sport, she says, “Contests are important for the mass. Video parts are important for the subculture, and I’m more interested in the subculture than the mass.” Hadar is all about keeping it real, but in a real way, and in recent years that has meant filming with Runway, 50-50s down ledges, massive bomb drops, and enough technical rail trickery to win the ’06 Vail Session and a slew of jams. She’s a snowboarder’s snowboarder from her offbeat sense of style to the tight crew of girls she rolls with. She’s got tons of snowboard pride and an open mind to where her career is headed—think it’s deeper into the city? Think again.—Annie Fast

How did you make it to where you are now?
I knew when I was young-I fell in love with snowboarding. I was in high school and I hated it and I was never good at it, so I just did anything I could to snowboard. My mom really helped me out to get me to motivate when I was super young. She was like, ‘Oh, you’ve got a passion, you’ve got to follow that and work really hard at it.’

I snowboarded my way through high school, moved to SLC, and did the thing: just ride as much as possible, put myself in the right situations, and hang out with the right people, and go to contests, and blah, blah, blah. And now I’m here, I guess.

Who influences you?
For sure Mikey LeBLanc is my main man. I definitely go to him and he’s helped me out a lot. Love him forever. And my family. My two best girls that I grew up snowboarding with Lindsay Lathrop and Molly Purnell, and then my crew of girls really inspire me Izzy, Lindsay, Marybeth, and CC. My homeys, the wolves. Any people who are committing themselves to exploring their talents: artists, musicians, even doctors, I’m like, “Damn dude, I can’t believe you’re doing that.” It’s so dope. Aww shit, I’m doing my thing-I gotta do it harder. You’re working so hard-I gotta work hard.

What scares you?
First thing that comes to mind is not living up to my potential, that’s a humanistic fear. I think that’s the biggest one, and what scares me also is not appreciating where I’m at and who I am and the people I’m with. It’s not like an overriding fear of mine, but I never want to not be appreciative.

What’s more important-contests or filming a part?
For my own personal goals, filming is more important because there’s no way you can get the satisfaction from dedicating yourself to showing what you can do, and how you do it, and the style you do it in. Nothing can compare to that, but at the same time there’s definitely something to be said for riding really good under the circumstances. I’ve competed a lot, especially when I was younger, and now I’m a little more turned off from it because it’s so hard to film a part and do the contests. But to be able to balance that-that just shows that you’re at the top of your game.

What has snowboarding taught you?
This was at the advice of Mikey (LeBlanc) and something I come back to a lot. I had a dream to become a pro snowboarder. It’s been seven years since I definitely knew that’s what I wanted and I did anything I could and committed myself and went through a lot of bullshit. At times I wanted to give up and throw in the towel, but I just stuck with it, and it’s taught me that anything I want in this world you can have it if you try hard and you push yourself-if you put yourself out there, you don’t give up, you can do it. That’s the best, most amazing thing.

What’s next for you?
I’ve finally got to this place where I feel comfortable now, where people respect me and my riding, and trust me, and believe in me, so I want to take that trust and confidence and really do it for mmyself now. Really make every day count not just for the shot, not just for the sponsors, or the video, or the photog, but for me. I want to get up into the real mountains. I love city riding, but my inner Colorado mountain hippie daughter wants to go soul searching in the deep powder-covered mountains and trees. The reason that I’ve been doing more streetstyle stuff the past couple years is that it’s way more accessible. I don’t have a snowmobile. I don’t have a truck. These are things that I will probably attain in the future because I’ve made it to the point where you can and that’s where I want to go.